Category tech

This deck isn’t about phones. It’s about looking backward to understand the context for where we are today, how mobile is the current bellwether for technological proliferation… but perhaps more important than all that, what this all means for the next 10 – 15 years.

In the midst of what’s become almost an overload of drone photography and filming… the below video caught my eye.

First, it’s not a helicopter drone… it’s a plane drone that only goes forward and does so quite fast. Second, it’s autonomous… meaning it alters it’s flight path in real time as it heads into (literally) a forest of random obstacles.

And then I came across this MIT-creation.

We’ve all seen endless robot fails… expensive experiments that run into walls or trip and fall. The simple truth it that those fails are just visual representations of invention and iteration. Those trials lead to something like this. A cheetah that can jump over obstacles coming at them in seemingly random heights and cadence.

Note the DARPA end card, “funded by DARPA Maximum Mobility and Manipulation.” That begs the question, is the following a behind-the-scenes look at the next Star Wars film or a trailer for the next regional conflict?

I’m fascinated by the intersection of humans and technology. No, I’m not talking about the singularity or cloning. I’m talking about the idea of people writing code that automates processes in our everyday lives.

We used to think technology only existed to serve us. We tell it what to do and it completes the task. Siri, text my wife I’ll be home in 30 minutes.

But what if we make bad choices? How can technology help us and perhaps even save us from our bad decisions or poor habits?

These two ideas caught my eye for these reasons. The first is an elevator that prompts you to not be so lazy… and suggests you walk a flight of stairs.

The second is a breathalyzer tied to the Uber car service. You drink, we drive.

Nothing better than technology breakthroughs that make you stop and not only watch the content but wonder how it was pulled off.

Ok, so what’s better is how all these capabilities are finding their way into the hands of the mainstream.

Here’s another. The footage for the music video below was filmed at the unheard-of rate of1000 frames/second. When played back at normal rate the 5 second shoot turns into a captivating 3.5-minute dream.

The word modern seems to have lost it’s luster. Hyper-modern better describes things that truly push the envelope… and this building does just this.

I think what I love most about this project is the overlapping of disciplines. Energy and architecture are somewhat strange bedfellows.

Most of us think we’ll eventually fly around (thanks Jetsons). We’re already using tri-corders (thanks Star Trek and Apple) to stay in touch. But I’m guessing very few of us thought we’d see the day when a building would be powered by algae.

Architecture powered by scum. If that doesn’t say 2014 than what does?

I love seeing innovation in it’s raw essence… prior to the packaging and promotion. THAW is an advancement from MIT that utilizes existing technology to open a new layer of screen/device interaction. Essentially they make systems and organizations work together in ways that didn’t exist until… now.

The pairing of human control and weather systems isn’t new. Every year we get better at forecasting; we tune algorithms to hone our knowledge related to when and where rain will fall… but we still have to be reactive to the rain event itself.

Of course the U.S. is into this area as well, cloud seeding has been experimented with for a decade. Other experiments connected to weather mods literally go back a century.

This is one of those subjects that sounds small until you fathom how it could be used to streamline and focus access to natural resources. Of course it will be used to drive economic returns (crop yields, water table replenishment, access to clean water, etc). It might even be used to address the massive amount of energy used to move water (an estimated 19% of California’s energy used to move water). It could also be used to force one region to comply with another region’s geopolitical preferences.

The simple truth is that it’s hard to tell where this will go but the road ahead is bound to be (sorry) slippery.

Someone once told me to never force a story into someone else’s framework. Tell a story in such a way that people connect with it… and at whatever length that demands.

The below video falls into this camp.

Leicas are the Mercedes of cameras.

Their cameras aren’t slammed together by robots. Leica is obsessive in their attention to hand-crafted detail. And so that is the story they tell… and take all of 45 minutes to make sure you understand this point. I love it.